Photo credit RhondaK Native Florida Folk Artist

“The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.” - Bruce Lee

Are you like me!?

Do you look around the world and wonder if we can ever heal our seemingly divided home?

If you are watching or listening to the mainstream media, it sounds like so many systems and people are living at the edge of a breakdown. For me, it is enough to KISS my CREATIVITY goodbye. I feel fortunate to have yoga and personal development resources - when I take a moment and breathe, I remember that STRESS drastically reduces my ability to think and operate creatively. Flow, innovation, and out-of-the-box thinking are all compromised when one is producing high levels of the stress hormone, Cortisol.

Since the beginning of the month, Cameron and I have been working to lower cortisol and increase our calm state of mind. We have been applying CREATIVITY to day-to-day life. One of the most potent and rewarding practices that we have found came to me serendipitously.

This CREATIVITY HACK came out of a story about a man living far from his children. He missed them terribly and struggled to reconcile the physical and relational distance. He yearned to be closer with them and knew that they were not separate from each other in REALITY. He knew they were always sharing a connection across time and space. He only needed to concentrate on that connection to experience it. He shared with me that he would send love, connection, and a feeling of closeness to each of his children every morning during meditation. He would send them ease and grace in their day and that they would each find their way into their hearts as a guide for their lives. Instead of filling the space with regret, disconnection, and loneliness, he filled it with energy that healed, held, and nurtured.

As he did this practice daily, he shared that his relationship with his kids was growing. Their phone calls and Zoom dates shifted smoothly into depth and laughter. As his relationships bloomed, his meditations gained nuance and potency, deepening their indirect connection time. As a forever student, I am always on the lookout for how I can become a better father and partner. I was so grateful for this lesson. As many of you know, we have two daughters, Abriella is ten, and Dabney Rose is seven. I reflected on my desire to experience greater depth and connection with my loved ones. Knowing that as I have become busier, with more boxes to check, I have become distracted and more linear in my relation to them.

Maybe you can relate.

The more overwhelmed I feel, the more monotonous and robotic my familial relationships become. Less space, more stress, less spontaneity, more impatience. I decided to try an experiment to see if I could create a deeper connection with my family.

I offer this experimental practice to you - here’s how:

1. Meditate my way deeper into the hearts of my family. This, in some ways, is the easiest part of the experiment. Because, I meditate every morning anyway, I just needed to shift my focus to my family as the central aim.

2. I set a timer for 22 minutes. Then, sitting tall, I drop into my breath. Closing my eyes, I imagine my loved ones smiling, laughing, hugging, playing, and in any situation that reminds me of the highest vibrations of our relationship.

3. I do this while generating the feelings that I associate with those experiences, as clearly and accurately as I can, inside my body and mind, right then and there! It feels so good!

4. The alarm goes off after 22 min. and I have a deep sense of connectedness and wellbeing associated with my family. When I see them in “Real Life,” I am elated. There is a good feeling in my body, and it translates into how I relate to them. This is a win-win for all of us!

Now, what does this have to do with CREATIVITY, you ask?

In just the last week of trying this out, I notice that when I am in sync and high vibration with my closest people, I naturally have less stress and handle challenging situations with greater ease! This means I am more likely looking at life through the relaxed and expansive viewpoint of my FRONTAL CORTEX vs. my reactive and defensive lizard brain in the back of my head.

This practice has been a game-changer!

I get my meditation in, I get closer to my most essential peeps, and my world of CREATIVITY has opened up, leading me towards a TON of fresh perspective, spontaneous “AHA Moments,” a feeling of HOPE for the future.

JOIN ME in this movement, and let’s transform our worlds for the better!